George Harrison Shull

Who was George Harrison Shull?

George Harrison Shull was an eminent American plant geneticist and the younger brother of botanical illustrator and plant breeder J. Marion Shull. He was born on a farm in Clark County, Ohio, graduated from Antioch College in 1901 and from the University of Chicago in 1904, served as botanical expert to the Bureau of Plant Industry in 1903-04, and thenceforth was a botanical investigator of the Carnegie Institution at the Station for Experimental Evolution, Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., giving special attention to the results of Luther Burbank's work.

Shull played an important role in the development of hybrid maize which had great impact upon global agriculture. As a geneticist, Shull worked with maize plants. He was interested in pure breeds not for their economic value but for his experiments in genetics. He produced maize breeds that bred true and then crossed these strains. The hybrid offspring of the sickly pure breeds were vigorous and predictable. In short, an ideal economic maize resulted from a project motivated purely to advance science. For his work on maize, Shull was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1948.